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"But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.""So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate" - (Rev 2:6,15)

The
address to Pergamos follows that to Smyrna. This next stage of the
Church’s journey in its departure (alas!) from truth may easily be
recognized historically. It applies to the time when, after having
passed through the heathen persecution, and the faithfulness of many an
Antipas being brought out by it, it got publicly recognized and
established in the world. The characteristic of this epistle is, the
Church dwelling where Satan’s throne is. "Throne" it should be, not
"seat." Now Satan has his throne, not in hell, which is his prison, and
where he never reigns at all, but in the world, he is expressly called
the "prince of this world." To dwell where Satan’s throne is, is to
settle down in the world, under Satan’s government, so to speak, and
protection. That is what people call the establishment of the Church.
It took place in Constantine’s time. Although amalgamation with the
world had been growing for a long time more and more decided, yet it
was then that the Church stepped into the seats of the old heathen
idolatry. It was what people call the triumph of Christianity, but the
result was that the Church had the things of the world now as never
before, in secure possession: the chief place in the world was hers,
and the principles of the world everywhere pervaded her.

The
very name of "Pergamos" intimates that. It is a word (without the
particle attached to it, which is itself significant,) - really meaning
"marriage," and the Church’s marriage before Christ comes to receive
her to Himself is necessarily unfaithfulness to Him to whom she is
espoused. It is the marriage of the Church and the world which the
epistle to Pergamos speaks of - the end of a courtship which had been
going on long before.

There is something, however, which is
preliminary to this, and mentioned in the very first address; but there
it is evidently incidental, and does not characterize the state of
things. In the first address, to the Ephesians, the Lord says, "But
this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I
also hate" (2:6). Here it is more than the "deeds" of the Nicolaitanes.
There are now not merely "deeds," but "doctrine." And the Church,
instead of repudiating it, was holding with it. In the Ephesian days,
they hated the deeds of the Nicolaitanes; but in Pergamos, they "had,"
and did not reprobate, those who held the doctrine.

The
question now before us is, How shall we interpret this? and we shall
find that the word "Nicolaitanes" is the only thing really which we
have to interpret it by. People have tried very hard to show that there
was a sect of the Nicolaitanes, but it is owned by writers now almost
on all sides to be very doubtful. Nor can we conceive why, in epistles
of the character which we have seen these to have, there should be such
repeated and emphatic mention of a mere obscure sect, about which
people can tell us little or nothing, and that seems manufactured to
suit the passage before us. The Lord solemnly denounces it: "Which
thing I hate." It must have a special importance with Him, and be of
moment in the Church’s history, little apprehended as it may have been.
And another thing which we have to remember is, that it is not the way
of Scripture to send us to church histories, or to any history at all,
in order to interpret its sayings. God’s Word is its own interpreter,
and we have not to go elsewhere in order to find out what is there;
otherwise it becomes a question of learned men searching and finding
out for those who have not the same means or abilities, applications
which must be taken on their authority alone. This He would not leave
His people to. Besides, it is the ordinary way in Scripture, and
especially in passages of a symbolical character, such as is the part
before us, for the names to be significant. I need not remind you how
abundantly in the Old Testament this is the case; and in the New
Testament, although less noticed, I cannot doubt but that there is the
same significance throughout.

Here, if we are left simply to
the name, it is one sufficiently startling and instructive. Of course,
to those who spoke the language used, the meaning would be no hidden or
recondite thing, but as apparent as those of Bunyan’s allegories. It
means, then, "Conquering the people." The last part of the word
("Laos") is the word used in Greek for "the people," and it is the word
from which the commonly used term "Laity" is derived. The Nicolaitanes
were just those "subjecting - putting down the laity" the mass of
Christian people, in order unduly to lord it over them.

What
makes this clearer is, that, - side by side with the Nicolaitanes in
the epistle to Pergamos, - we have those who hold the doctrine of
Balaam, a name whose similarity in meaning has been observed by many.
"Balaam" is a Hebrew word, as the other is a Greek; but its meaning is,
"Destoryer of the people," a very significant one in view of his
history; and as we read of the "doctrine of the Nicolaitanes," so we
read of a "doctrine of Balaam."

You have pointed out what he
"taught" Balak. Balaam’s doctrine was, "to cast a stumbling-block
before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and
to commit fornication." For this purpose he enticed them to mixture
with the nations, from which God had carefully separated them. That
needful separation broken down was their destruction, so far as it
prevailed. In like manner we have seen the Church to be called out from
the world, and it is only too easy to apply the divine type in this
case. But here we have a confessedly typical people, with a
corresponding significant name, and in such close connection as
naturally to confirm the reading of the similar word, "Nicolaitanes,"
as similarly significant. I shall have to speak more of this at another
time, if the Lord will. Let us notice now the development of
Nicolaitanism. It is, first of all, certain people who have this
character, and who (I am merely translating the word.) first take the
place of superiors over the people. Their "deeds" show what they are.
There is no "doctrine" yet; but it ends in Pergamos, with the doctrine
of the Nicolaitanes. The place is assumed now to be theirs by right.
There is a doctrine - a teaching about it, received at least by some,
and to which the Church at large - nay, on the whole true souls, have
become indifferent.

Now what has come in between these two things, - the "deeds"
and the "doctrine"? What we were looking at last time - the rise of a
party whom the Lord marks out as those who said they were Jews and were
not, but who were the synagogue of Satan: the adversary’s attempt
(alas! too successful) to Judaize the Church.

We were looking
but a little while since at what the characteristics of Judaism are. It
was a probationary system, a system of trial, in which it was to be
seen if man could produce a righteousness for God. We know the end of
the trial, and that God pronounced "none righteous - no, not one." And
then alone it was that God could manifest His grace. As long as He was
putting man under trial, He could not possibly open the way to His own
presence and justify the sinner there. He had, as long as this trial
went on, to shut him out; for on that ground, nobody could see God and
live. Now the very essence of Christianity is that all are welcomed in.
There is an open door, and ready access, where the blood of Christ
entitles every one, however much a sinner, to draw near to God, and to
find, in the first place, at His hand, justification as ungodly. To see
God in Christ is not to die, but live. And what, further, is the
consequence of this? The people who have come this way to Him, - the
people who have found the way of access through the peace-speaking
blood into His presence, learned what He is in Christ, and been
justified before God, are able to take, and taught to take, a place
distinct from all others, as now His, children of the Father, members
of Christ - His body. That is the Church, a body called out, separate
from the world.

Judaism, on the other hand, necessarily mixed
all together. Nobody there could take such a place with God: nobody
could cry, "Abba, Father," really; therefore there could not be any
separation. This had been then a necessity, and of God, no doubt; but
now, Judaism being set up again, after God had abolished it, it was no
use, it is no use, to urge that it was once of Him; its setting up was
the too successful work of the enemy against His gospel and against His
Church. He brands these Judaizers as the "synagogue of Satan."

Now
we can understand at once, when the Church in its true character was
practically lost sight of, when Church-members meant people baptized by
water instead of by the Holy Ghost, or when the baptism of water and of
the Holy Ghost were reckoned one, (and this very early became accepted
doctrine,) how of course the Jewish synagogue was practically again set
up. It became more and more impossible to speak of Christians being at
peace with God, or saved. They were hoping to be, and sacraments and
ordinances became means of grace to insure, as far as might be, a
far-off salvation.

Let us see how far this would help on the
doctrine of the Nicolaitanes. It is plain that when and as the Church
sank into the synagogue, the Christian people became practically what
of old the Jewish had been. Now, what was that position? As I have
said, there was no real drawing near to God at all. Even the
high-priest, who (as a type of Christ,) entered into the holiest once a
year, on the day of atonement, had to cover the mercy-seat with a cloud
of incense that he might not die. But the ordinary priests could not
enter there at all, but only into the outer holy place; while the
people in general could not come in even there. And this was expressly
designed as a witness of their condition. It was the result of failure
on their part; for God’s offer to them, which you may find in the
nineteenth chapter of Exodus, was this: "Now, therefore, if ye will
obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, ye shall be a peculiar
treasure unto Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine; and ye
shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation."

They
were thus conditionally offered equal nearness of access to God, - they
should be all priests. But this was rescinded, for they broke the
covenant; and then a special family is put into the place of priests,
the rest of the people being put into the background, and only able to
draw near to God through these.

Thus a separate and intermediate priesthood characterized
Judaism, as on the other hand, for the same reason, what we should call
now missionary-work there was none. There was no going out to the world
in this way, no provision, no command, to preach the law at all. What,
in fact, could they say? that God was in the thick darkness? that no
one could see Him and live? It is surely evident there was no "good
news" there. Judaism had no true gospel. The absence of the evangelist
and the presence of the intermediate priesthood told the same sorrowful
story, and were in perfect keeping with each other.

Such was
Judaism; how different, then, is Christianity! No sooner had the death
of Christ rent the vail, and opened a way of access into the presence
of God, than at once there was a gospel, and the new order is, "Go out
into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." God is
making Himself known, and "is He the God of the Jews only?" Can you
confine that within the bounds of a nation? No; the fermentation of the
new wine would burst the bottles.

The intermediate priesthood was, on the other hand, done away;
for all the Christian people are priests now to God. What was
conditionally offered to Israel is now an accomplished fact in
Christianity. We are a kingdom of priests; and it is, in the wisdom of
God, Peter, ordained of man the great head of ritualism, who in his
first epistle announces the two things which destroy ritualism root and
branch for those who believe him. First, that we are "born again," not
of baptism, but "by the word of God, that liveth and abideth forever;"
and this, "the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."
Secondly, instead of a set of priests, he says to all Christians, "Ye
also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy
priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by
Jesus Christ." (2:5). The sacrifices are spiritual, praise and
thanksgiving, and our lives and bodies also (Heb. 13:15, 16; Rom.
12:1); but this is to be with us true priestly work, and thus do our
lives get their proper character: they are the thank-offering service
of those able to draw nigh to God.

In Judaism, let me repeat,
no one drew really nigh; but the people - the laity (for it is only a
Greek word made English,) - the people not even as the priest could.
The priestly caste, wherever it is found, means the same thing. There
is no drawing nigh of the whole body of the people at all. It means
distance from God, and darkness, - God shut out.

Let us see now what is the meaning of a clergy. It is, in our
day, and has been for many generations, the word which specially marks
out a class distinguished from the "laity," and distinguished by being
given up to sacred things, and having a place of privilege in
connection with them which the laity have not. No doubt in the present
day this special place is being more and more infringed on, and for two
reasons. One is, that God has been giving light, and, among Protestants
at least, Scripture is opposing itself to tradition, - modifying where
it does not destroy this. The other is a merely human one - that the
day is democratic, and class-privileges are breaking down.

But
what means this class? It is evident that as thus distinguished from
the laity, and privileged beyond them, it is real and open
Nicolaitanism, if Scripture does not make good their claim. For then
the laity has been subjected to them, and that is the exact meaning of
the term. Does Scripture, then, use such terms? It is plain it does
not. They are, as regards the New Testament, an invention of later
date, although, it may be admitted, as imported really from what is
older than the New, - the Judaism with which the Church (as we have
seen,) was quickly permeated.

But we must see the important
principles involved, to see how the Lord has (as He must have) cause to
say of the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, "Which I also hate." We too, if
we would be in communion with the Lord in this must hate what He hates.

I am not speaking of people (God forbid!): I am speaking of a
thing. Our unhappiness is, that we are at the end of a long series of
departures from God, and as a consequence, we grow up in the midst of
many things which come down to us as "tradition of the elders,"
associated with names which we all revere and love, upon whose
authority in reality we have accepted them, without ever having looked
at them really in the light of God’s presence. And there are many thus
whom we gladly recognize as truly men of God and servants of God in a
false position. It is of that position I am speaking. I am speaking of
a thing, as the Lord does: "Which thing I hate." He does not say, Which
people I hate. Although in those days evil of this kind was not an
inheritance, as now, and the first propagators of it, of course, had a
responsibility, self- deceived as they may have been, peculiarly their
own. Still, in this matter as in all others, we need not be ashamed or
afraid to be where the Lord is; - nay, we cannot be with Him in this
unless we are; and He says of Nicolaitanism, "Which thing I hate."

Because
what does it mean? It means a spiritual caste, or class, - a set of
people having officially a right to leadership in spiritual things; a
nearness to God, derived from official place, not spiritual power: in
fact, the revival, under other names, and with various modifications,
of that very intermediate priesthood which distinguished Judaism, and
which Christianity emphatically disclaims. That is what a clergy means;
and in contradiction to these, the rest of Christians are but the
laity, the seculars, necessarily put back into more or less of the old
distance, which the cross of Christ has done away.

We see, then, why it needed that the Church should be Judaized
before the deeds of the Nicolaitanes could ripen into a "doctrine." The
Lord even had authorized obedience to scribes and Pharisees sitting in
Moses’ seat; and to make this text apply, as people apply it now,
Moses’ seat had of course to be set up in the Christian Church: this
done, and the mass of Christians degraded from the priesthood Peter
spoke of, into mere "lay members," the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes was
at once established.

Understand me fully, that I am in no wise
questioning the divine institution of the Christian ministry. God
forbid! for ministry in the fullest sense is characteristic of
Christianity, as I have already in fact maintained. Nor do I, while
believing that all true Christians are ministers also by the very fact,
deny a special and distinctive ministry of the Word, as what God has
given to some and not to all - though for the use of all. No one truly
taught of God can deny that some, not all, among Christians have the
place of evangelist, pastor, teacher. Scripture makes more of this than
current views do; for it teaches that every true minister is a gift
from Christ, in His care, as Head of the Church, for His people, and
one who has his place from God alone, and is responsible in that
character to God, and God alone. The miserable system which I see
around degrades him from this blessed place, and makes him in fact
little more than the manufacture and the servant of men. While giving,
it is true, a place of lordship over people which gratifies a carnal
mind, still it fetters the spiritual man, and puts him in chains; every
where giving him an artificial conscience toward man, hindering in fact
his conscience being properly before God.

Let me briefly state
what the Scripture-doctrine of the ministry is - it is a very simple
one. The Assembly of God is Christ’s body; all the members are members
of Christ. There is no other membership in Scripture than this - the
membership of Christ’s body, to which all true Christians belong: not
many bodies of Christ, but one body; not many Churches, but one Church.

There is of course a different place for each member of the
body by the very fact that he is such. All members have not the same
office: there is the eye, the ear, and so on, but they are all
necessary, and all necessarily ministering, in some way or sense, to
one another.

Every member has its place, not merely locally, and for the
benefit of certain other members, but for the benefit of the whole body.

Each member has its gift, as the apostle teaches distinctly.
"For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the
same office; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one
members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the
grace that is given to us, etc. (Rom. 12:4-6.)

In the twelfth chapter of first Corinthians, the apostle
speaks at large of these gifts; and he calls them by a significant name
- "manifestations of the Spirit." They are gifts of the Spirit, of
course; but more, they are "manifestations of the Spirit;" they
manifest themselves where they are found, - where (I need scarcely add
that I mean,) there is spiritual discernment, - where souls are before
God.

For instance, if you take the gospel of God, whence does
it derive its authority and power? From any sanction of men? any human
credentials of any kind? or from its own inherent power? I dare
maintain, that the common attempt to authenticate the messenger takes
away from instead of adding to the power of the Word. God’s Word must
be received as such: he that receives it sets to his seal that God is
true. Its ability to meet the needs of heart and conscience is derived
from the fact that it is "God’s good news," who knows perfectly what
man’s need is, and has provided for it accordingly. He who has felt its
power knows well from whom it comes. The work and witness of the Spirit
of God in the soul need no witness of man to supplement them.

Even
the Lord’s appeal in His own case was to the truth He uttered: "If I
say the truth, why do ye not believe Me?" When He stood forth in the
Jewish synagogue, or elsewhere, He was but in men’s eyes a poor
carpenter’s son, accredited by no school or set of men at all. All the
weight of authority was ever against Him. He disclaimed even "receiving
testimony from men." God’s Word alone should speak for God. "My
doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me." And how did it approve
itself? By the fact of its being truth. "If I speak the truth, why do
you not believe Me?" It was the truth that was to make its way with the
true. "He that will do God’s will shall know of the doctrine, whether
it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself." He says, "I speak the
truth, I bring it to you from God; and if it is truth, and if you are
seeking to do God’s will, you will learn to recognize it as the truth."
God will not leave people in ignorance and darkness, if they are
seek-ing to be doers of His will. Can you suppose that God will allow
true hearts to be deceived by whatever plausible deceptions may be
abroad? He is able to make His voice known by those who seek to hear
His voice. And so the Lord says to Pilate, "Every one that is of the
truth heareth My voice." (John 18:37.) "My sheep hear My voice, and I
know them, and they follow Me;" and again, "A stranger will they not
follow, but will flee from him; for they know not the voice of
strangers." (John 10:27,5.)

Such is the nature of truth, then, that to pretend to
authenticate it to those who are themselves true is to dishonour it, as
if it were not capable of self- evidence, and so dishonour God, as if
He could be wanting to souls, or to what He Himself has given.

Nay,
the apostle speaks of "by manifestation of the truth commending
ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God" (2 Cor. 4:2):
and the Lord, of its being the condemnation of the world, that "light
is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil" (John 3:19). There was no lack of
evidence: light was there, and men owned its power to their own
condemnation, when they sought escape from it.

Even so in the gift was there "the manifestation of the
Spirit," and it was "given to every man to profit withal." By the very
fact that he had it, he was responsible to use it - responsible to Him
who had not given it in vain. In the gift itself lay the ability to
minister, and title too; for I am bound to help and serve with what I
have. And if souls are helped, they need scarcely ask if I had
commission to do it.

This is the simple character of ministry
- the service of love, according to the ability which God gives, mutual
service of each to each and each to all, without jostling or exclusion
of one another. Each gift was thrown into the common treasury, and all
were the richer by it. God’s blessing and the manifestation of the
Spirit were all the sanction needed. All were not teachers, still less
public teachers, of the Word; still in these cases, the same principles
exactly applied. That was but one department of a service which had
many, and which was rendered by each to each according to his sphere.

Was there nothing else than that? Was there no ordained class
at all, then? That is another thing altogether. There were, without
doubt, in the primitive Church, two classes of officials, regularly
appointed, or (if you like) ordained. The deacons were those who,
having charge of the fund for the poor and other purposes, were chosen
by the saints first for this place of trust in their behalf, and then
appointed authoritatively by apostles mediately or immediately. Elders
were a second class, - elderly men, as the word imports, - who were
appointed in the local assemblies as "bishops," or "overseers," to take
cognizance of their state. That the elders were the same as bishops may
be seen in Paul’s words to the elders of Ephesus, where he exhorts them
to "take heed to . . . . all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath
made you overseers." There they have translated the word, "bishops,"
but in Titus they have left it - "that thou shouldest ordain elders in
every city, as I had appointed thee; if any be blameless . .for a
bishop must be blameless."(Acts 20:28 Tit.1:5,7.)

Their work was
to "oversee," and although for that purpose their being "apt to teach"
was a much-needed qualification, in view of errors already rife, yet no
one could suppose that teaching was confined to those who were
"elders," "husbands of one wife, having their children in subjection
with all gravity." This was a needed test for one who was to be a
bishop; "for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he
take care of the Church of God?" (1 Tim. 3:1-7.)

Whatever gifts they had they used, as all did, and thus the
apostle directs - "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of
double honour, especially they who labour in the Word and doctrine
(5:17). But they might rule, and rule well, without this.

The
meaning of their ordination was just this, that here it was not a
question of "gift," but of authority. It was a question of title to
take up and look into, often difficult and delicate matters, among
people too very likely in no state to submit to what was merely
spiritual. The ministration of gift was another thing, and free, under
God, to all.

Thus much, very briefly, as to Scripture-doctrine. Our painful
duty is now to put in contrast with it the system I am deprecating,
according to which a distinct class are devoted formally to spiritual
things, and the people - the laity - are in the same ratio excluded
from such occupation. This is true Nicolaitanism, - the "subjection of
the people."

Again I say, not only that ministry of the Word is entirely
right, but that there are those who have special gift and
responsibility (though still not exclusive) to minister it. But
priesthood is another thing, and a thing sufficiently distinct to be
easily recognized where it is claimed or in fact exists. I am, of
course, aware that Protestants in general disclaim any priestly powers
for their ministers. I have no wish nor thought of disputing their
perfect honesty in this disavowal. They mean that they have no thought
of the minister having any authoritative power of absolution; and that
they do not make the Lord’s table an altar, whereon afresh day after
day the perfection of Christ’s one offering is denied by countless
repetitions. They are right in both respects, but it is scarcely the
whole matter. If we look more deeply, we shall find that much of a
priestly character may attach where neither of these have the least
place.

Priesthood and ministry may be distinguished in this
way: Ministry (in the sense we are now considering) is to men;
priesthood is to God. The minister brings God’s message to the people,
- he speaks for Him to them: the priest goes to God for the people, -
he speaks in the reverse way, for them to Him. It is surely easy to
distinguish these two attitudes.

"Praise and thanksgiving" are spiritual "sacrifices:" they are
part of our offering as priests. Put a special class into a place where
regularly and officially they act thus for the rest, they are at once
in the rank of an intermediate priesthood, - mediators with God for
those who are not so near.

The Lord’s supper is the most prominent and fullest expression
of Christian thankfulness and adoration publicly and statedly; but what
Protestant minister does not look upon it as his official right to
administer this? What "layman" would not shrink from the profanation of
administering it? And this is one of the terrible evils of the system,
that the mass of Christian people are thus distinctly secularized.
Occupied with worldly things, they cannot be expected to be spiritually
what the clergy are. And to this they are given over, as it were. They
are released from spiritual occupations, to which they are not equal,
and to which others give themselves entirely.

But this must
evidently go much further. "The priest’s lips should keep knowledge."
The laity, who have become that by abdicating their priesthood, how
should they retain the knowledge belonging to a priestly class? The
unspirituality to which they have given themselves up pursues them
here. The class whose business it is, become the authorized
interpreters of the Word also, for how should the secular man know so
well what Scripture means? Thus the clergy become spiritual eyes and
ears and mouth for the laity, and are in the fair way of becoming the
whole body too.

But it suits people well. Do not mistake me as if I meant that
this is all come in as the assumption of a class merely. It is that, no
doubt ; but never could this miserable and unscriptural distinction of
clergy and laity have obtained so rapidly as it did, and so
universally, if every where it had not been found well adapted to the
tastes of those even whom it really displaced and degraded. Not alone
in Israel, but in christendom also, has it been fulfilled: "The
prophets prophecy falsely, and the priests bear rule through their
means, and My people love to have it so!" Alas! they did, and they do.
As spiritual decline sets in, the heart that is turning to the world
barters readily, Esau- like, its spiritual birthright for a mess of
pottage. It exchanges thankfully its need of caring too much for
spiritual things, with those who will accept the responsibility of
this. Worldliness is well covered with a layman’s cloak; and as the
Church at large dropped out of first love, (as it did rapidly, and then
the world began to come in through the loosely guarded gates,) it
became more and more impossible for the rank and file of christendom to
take the blessed and wonderful place which belonged to Christians. The
step taken downward, instead of being retrieved, only made succeeding
steps each one easier; until, in less than three hundred years from the
beginning, a Jewish priesthood and a ritualistic religion were
every-where installed. Only so much the worse, as the precious things
of Christianity left their names at least as spoils to the invader, and
the shadow became for most the substance itself.

But I must
return to look more particularly at one feature in this clerisy. I have
noted the confounding of ministry and priesthood; the assumption of an
official title in spiritual things, of title to administer the Lord’s
supper, and I might have added also, to baptize. For none of these
things can scripture be found at all. But I must dwell a little more on
the emphasis that is laid on ordination.

I want you to see a little more what ordination means. In the
first place, if you look through the New Testament, you will find
nothing about ordination to teach or to preach. You find people going
about every where freely exercising whatever gift they had; the whole
Church was scattered abroad from Jerusalem except the apostles, and
they went every where preaching (literally, evangelizing) the Word. The
persecution did not ordain them, I suppose. So with Apollos: so with
Philip the deacon. There is, in fact, no trace of any thing else.
Timothy received a gift of prophecy, by the laying on of Paul’s hands
with those of the elders; but that was gift, not authorization to use
it. So he is bidden to communicate his own knowledge to faithful men,
who should be able to teach others also; but there is not a word about
ordaining them. The case of elders I have already noticed. That of Paul
and Barnabas at Antioch is the most unhappy that can be for the purpose
people use it for; for prophets and teachers are made to ordain an
apostle, and one who totally disclaims being that. "of men or by man."
And there the Holy Ghost (not confers power of ordaining any, but)
says, "Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereto I have called
them," - a special missionary journey, which it is shown afterward they
had fulfilled. (See Acts 8, 11, 13, 18; 1 Tim., etc.)

Now,
what means this "ordination"? It means much, you may be sure, or it
would not be so zealously contended for as it is. There are, no doubt,
two phases of it. In the most extreme, as among Romanists and
ritualists, there is claimed for it in the fullest way that it is the
conveyance, not merely of authority, but of spiritual power. They
assume with all the power of apostles to give the Holy Ghost by the
laying on of their hands, and here for priesthood in the fullest way.
The people of God as such are rejected from the priesthood He has given
them, and a special class are put into their place to mediate for them
in a way which sets aside the fruit of Christ’s work, and ties them to
the Church as the channel of all grace. Among Protestants, you think
perhaps I need not dwell on this; but it is done among some of these
also, in words which to a certain class of them seem strangely to mean
nothing, while another class find in them the abundant sanction of
their highest pretensions.

Those, on the other hand, who rightly and consistently reject
these unchristian assumptions do not pretend indeed to confer any gift
in ordination, but only to "recognize" the gift which God has given.
But then, after all, this recognition is considered necessary before
the person can baptize or administer the Lord’s supper, - things which
really require no peculiar gift at all. And as to the ministry of the
Word, God’s gift is made to require human sanction, and is "recognized"
on behalf of His people by those who are considered to have a
discernment which the people as such have not. Blind themselves or not,
these men are to become "leaders of the blind;" else why need others to
be eyes for them, while their own souls are taken out of the place of
immediate responsibility to God, and made responsible unduly to man? An
artificial conscience is manufactured for them, and conditions are
constantly imposed, to which they have to conform in order to obtain
the needful recognition. It is well if they are not under the control
of their ordainers as to their path of service also, as they generally
are.

In principle, this is unfaithfulness to God; for if He
has given me gift to use for Him, I am surely unfaithful if I go to any
man or body of men to ask their leave to use it. The gift itself
carries with it the responsibility of using it, as we have seen. If
they say, "But people may make mistakes," I own it thoroughly; but who
is to assume my responsibility if I am mistaken? And again, the
mistakes of an ordaining body are infinitely more serious than those of
one who merely runs unsent. Their mistakes are consecrated and
perpetuated by the ordination they bestow; and the man who, if he stood
simply upon his own merits, would soon find his true level, has a
character conferred upon him by it which the whole weight of the system
must sustain. Mistake or not, he is none the less one of the clerical
body, - a minister, if he has nothing really to minister. He must be
provided for, if only with some less conspicuous place, where souls,
dear to God as any, are put under his care, and must be unfed if he
cannot feed them.

Do not accuse me of sarcasm; it is the
system I am speaking of which is a sarcasm, - a swathing of the body of
Christ in bands which hinder the free circulation of the vitalizing
blood which should be permeating unrestrictedly the whole of it. Nature
itself should rebuke the folly - the enormous inference from such
scriptural premises as that apostles and apostolic men "ordained
elders"! They must prove that they are either, and (granting them
that,) that the Scripture "elder" might be no elder at all, but a young
unmarried man just out of his teens, and on the other hand was
evangelist, pastor, teacher - all God’s various gifts rolled into one.
This is the minister (according to the system, indeed, the minister,) -
the all in all to the fifty or five hundred souls who are committed to
him as "his flock," with which no other has title to interfere! Surely,
surely, the brand of "Nicolaitanism" is upon the forefront of such a
system as this!

Take it at its best, the man, if gifted at all, is scarcely
likely to have every gift. Suppose he is an evangelist, and souls are
happily converted; he is no teacher, and cannot build them up. Or he is
a teacher, sent to a place where there are but a few Christians, and
the mass of his congregation unconverted men. There are no conversions,
and his presence there (according to the system) keeps away the
evangelist who is needed there. Thank God! He is ever breaking up these
systems, and in some irregular way the need may be supplied. But the
supply is schismatical and a confusion: the new wine breaks the poor
human bottles.

For all this the system is responsible. The
exclusive ministry of one man or of a number of men in a congregation
has no shred of Scripture to support it; while the ordination, as we
have seen is the attempt to confine all ministry to a certain class,
and make it rest on human authorization rather than on divine gift, the
people, Christ’s sheep, being denied their competency to hear His
voice. The inevitable tendency is, to fix upon the man the attention
which should be devoted to the word he brings. The question is, Is he
accredited? If he speak truly is subordinated to the question, Is he
ordained? or, perhaps I should say; his orthodoxy is settled already
for them by the fact of his ordination.

Paul, an apostle, not of men, nor by man, could not have been,
upon this plan, received. There were apostles before him, and he
neither went up to them nor got any thing from them. If there were a
succession, he was a break in the succession. And what he did he did
designedly, to show that his gospel was not after man (Gal. 1:11), and
that it might not rest upon the authority of man. Nay, if he himself
preached a different gospel from that he had preached, (for there was
not another,) - yea, or an angel from heaven (where the authority, if
that were in question, might seem conclusive), his solemn decision is,
"Let him be accursed."

Authority, then, is nothing if it be
not the authority of the Word of God. That is the test - Is it
according to the Scriptures? "If the blind lead the blind, shall they
not both fall into the ditch?" To say, "I could not, of course, know: I
trusted another," will not save you from the ditch.

But the unspiritual and unlearned layman, how can he pretend
to equal knowledge with the educated and accredited minister devoted to
spiritual things? In point of fact, in general he does not. He yields
to the one who should know better; and practically the minister’s
teaching largely supplants the authority of the Word of God. Not that
certainty, indeed, is thus attained. He cannot conceal it from himself
that people differ - wise and good and learned and accredited as they
may be. But here the devil steps in, and, if God has allowed men’s
"authorities" to get into a Babel of confusion, as they have, suggests
to the unwary soul that the confusion must be the result of the
obscurity of Scripture, whereas they have got into it by disregarding
Scripture.

But this is every where! Opinion, not faith; -
opinion to which you are welcome and have a right, of course; and you
must allow others a right to theirs. You may say, "I believe," as long
as you do not mean by that, "I know." To claim "knowledge" is to claim
that you are wiser, more learned, better, than whole generations before
you, who thought opposite to you.

Need I show you how infidelity thrives upon this? how Satan
rejoices when for the simple and emphatic "Yea" of the divine voice he
succeeds in substituting the Yea and Nay of a host of jarring
commentators? Think you can fight the Lord’s battles with the rush of
human opinion instead of "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of
God"? Think you "Thus saith John Calvin, or John Wesley," will meet
Satan as satisfactorily as "Thus saith the Lord"?

Who can deny that such thoughts are abroad, and in no wise
confined to papists or ritualists? The tendency, alas! is, in the heart
of unbelief ever departing from the living God, - as near to His own
to-day as at any time through the centuries His Church has travelled
on, as competent to instruct as ever, as ready to fulfill the word, "He
that will do His will shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of
God." The "eyes are of the heart," and not the head. He has hidden from
wise and prudent what He reveals to babes. The school of God is more
effectual than all colleges combined, and here layman and cleric are
equal: "he that is spiritual discerneth all things," and he alone.
Substitute for spirituality there is none: unspirituality the Spirit of
God alone can remedy. Ordination, such as practiced, is rather a
sanction put upon it, - an attempt to manifest what is the
manifestation of the Spirit, or not His work at all, and to provide
leaders for the blind, whom with all their care they cannot insure not
being blind also.

Before I close, I must say a few words about
"succession." An ordination which pretends to be derived from the
apostles must needs be (to be consistent,) a successional one. Who can
confer authority (and in the least and lowest theories of ordination
authority is conferred, as to baptize, and to administer the Lord’s
supper,) but one himself authorized for this very purpose? You must,
therefore, have a chain of ordained men, lineally succeeding one
another. Apostolic succession is as necessary on the presbyterian as on
the episcopalian plan. John Wesley, as his warrant for ordaining, fell
back upon the essential oneness of bishop and presbyter. Nay,
presbyterians will urge against episcopalians the ease of maintaining
succession in this way. I have nothing to do with this: I only insist
that succession is needed.

But then, mark the result. It is a thing apart alike from
spirituality and from truth even. A Romish priest may have it as well
as any; and indeed through the gutter of Rome most of that we have
around us must necessarily have come down. Impiety and impurity do not
in the least invalidate Christ’s commission. The teacher of false
doctrine may be as well His messenger as the teacher of truth. Nay, the
possession of the truth, with gift to minister it and godliness
combined, are actually no part of the credentials of the true
ambassador. He may have all these and be none; he may want them all and
be truly one nevertheless.

Who can believe such doctrine? Can
He who is truth accredit error? - the righteous One unrighteousness? It
is impossible. This ecclesiasticism violates every principle of
morality, and hardens the conscience that has to do with it. For why
need we be careful for truth if He is not? and how can He send
messengers that He would not have to be believed? His own test of a
true witness fails; for "he that speaketh of himself seeketh his own
glory; but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true,
and no unrighteousness is in him." His own test of credibility fails,
for "If I speak the truth, why do ye not believe Me?" was His own
appeal.

No: to state this principle is to condemn it. He who foresaw
and predicted the failure of what should have been the bright and
evident witness of His truth and grace, could not ordain a succession
of teachers for it who should carry His commission unforfeitable by
whatever failure! Before apostles had left the earth, the house of God
had become as a "great house," and it was necessary to separate from
vessels to dishonour in it, He who bade His apostle to instruct another
to "follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those who call on
the Lord out of a pure heart," could not possibly tell us to listen to
men who are alien from all this, as His ministers, and having His
commission in spite of all. And thus notably, in the second epistle to
Timothy, in which this is said, there is no longer, as in the first,
any talk of elders or of ordained men. It is "faithful men" "who are
wanted, not for ordination, but for the deposit of the truth committed
to Timothy: "The things which thou hast heard of me among many
witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to
teach others also."

Thus God’s holy Word vindicates itself to
the heart and conscience ever. The effort to attach His sanction to a
Romish priesthood or a Protestant hierarchy fails alike upon the same
ground, for as to this they are upon the same ground. Alas!
Nicolaitanism is no past thing - no obscure doctrine of past ages, but
a widespread and gigantic system of error, fruitful in evil results.
Error is long-lived, though mortal. Reverence it not for its gray
hairs, and follow not with a multitude to do evil. With cause does the
Lord say in this case, "Which thing I hate." If He does, shall we be
afraid to have fellowship with Him? That there are good men entangled
in it, all must admit. There are godly men, and true ministers,
ignorantly wearing the livery of men. May God deliver them! may they
cast aside their fetters and be free! May they rise up to the true
dignity of their calling, responsible to God, and walking before Him
alone!

On the other hand, beloved brethren, it is of immense
importance that all His people, however diverse their places in the
body of Christ may be, should realize that they are all as really
ministers as they are all priests. We need to recognize that every
Christian has spiritual duties flowing from spiritual relationship to
every other Christian. It is the privilege of each one to contribute
his share to the common treasury of gift, with which Christ has endowed
His Church. Nay, he who does not contribute is actually holding back
what is his debt to the whole family of God. No possessor of one talent
is entitled to wrap it in a napkin upon that account: it would be mere
unfaithfulness and unbelief.

"It is more blessed to give than
to receive." Brethren in Christ, when shall we awake to the reality of
our Lord’s words there? Ours is a never- failing spring of perpetual
joy and blessing, which if we but come to when we thirst, out of our
bellies shall flow rivers of living water. The spring is not limited by
the vessel which receives it: it is divine, and yet ours fully, - fully
as can be! Oh to know more this abundance, and the responsibility of
the possession of it, in a dry and weary scene like this! Oh to know
better the infinite grace which has taken us up as channels of its
outflow among men! When shall we rise up to the sense of our common
dignity, - to the sweet reality of fellowship with Him who "came not to
be ministered unto, but to minister"? Oh for unofficial ministry - the
overflowing of full hearts into empty ones, so many as there are around
us! How we should rejoice, in a scene of want and misery and sin, to
find perpetual opportunity to show the competency of Christ’s fullness
to meet and minister to every form of it.

Official ministry is
practical independence of the Spirit of God. It is to decide that such
a vessel shall overflow though at the time, it may be, practically
empty; and, on the other hand, that such another shall not overflow,
however full He may have filled it up. It proposes, in the face of Him
who has come down in Christ’s absence to be the Guardian of His people,
to provide for order and for edification, not by spiritual power, but
by legislation. It would provide for failure on the part of Christ’s
sheep to hear His voice, by making it as far as possible unnecessary
for them to do so. It thus sanctions and perpetuates unspirituality,
instead of condemning or avoiding it.

It is quite true that in
God’s mode of treating it the failure in man’s part may become more
evident externally; for He cares little for a correct outside when the
heart is nevertheless not right with Him, and He knows well that
ability to maintain a correct outside may in fact prevent a truthful
judgment of what is our real condition before Him. Men would have
upbraided Peter with his attempt to walk upon those waves which made
his little faith so manifest. The Lord would only rebuke the littleness
of the faith which made him fail. And man still and ever would propose
the boat as the remedy for failure, instead of the strength of the
Lord’s support, which He made Peter prove. Yet, after all, the boat
confessedly may fail, - winds and waves may overthrow it: but "the Lord
on high is mightier than the noise of many waters - yea, than the
mighty waves of the sea." Through these many centuries of failure, have
we proved Him untrustworthy? Beloved, is it your honest conviction that
it is absolutely safe to trust the living God? Then let us make no
provision for His failure, however much we may have to own that we have
failed! Let us act as if we really trusted Him.